Taxi charge system on its way in Indonesia
Taxi charge system on its way in Indonesia
By Russell Williamson
Indonesia may have its first taxi charge card system in place before 1997 following the formation of Cabcharge Asia in Singapore.
Cabcharge Asia Pte Ltd is a joint venture between the Australian taxi charge card firm, Cabcharge Australia Pty Ltd and Singapore's CityCab Pte Ltd.
Cabcharge Asia will serve as the regional hub for Cabcharge and plans to expand into Indonesia are already being implemented, with CityCab signing a memorandum of understanding with taxi company PT Steady Safe.
PT Steady Safe operates about 3,000 taxis and 450 buses in the greater Jakarta area and expects to add another 750 taxis and 1,000 buses to its fleet in 1996.
The memorandum of understanding states that CityCab will assist PT Steady Safe to computerize and upgrade its current taxi dispatch system and, under the auspices of Cabcharge Asia, develop and promote a taxi charge account system.
The managing director of PT Steady Safe, Jo Liat Tjiang, said the implementation of the Cabcharge system may be possible within about one year, although the timing was subject to a number of factors.
"We still have to finalize our study concerning the whole subject and it is directly or indirectly subject to the introduction of the same system in Singapore, which is supposed to be implemented at the beginning of next year," Jo said.
He said the company, with the help of CityCab, also needed to upgrade its dispatch operations and service infrastructure before initiating a charge card system.
"We have to improve the service around the system because our company still has many weaknesses and we would like to improve those things first before we start with the Cabcharge system," he said.
The system will be based on the Cabcharge system first developed in Australia in 1976, which allows corporate and individual customers to charge taxi fares on a charge card.
The card is not tied to any particular cab company and can be used in affiliated cabs around the world with payment made on a single monthly account in the client's own currency.
Cabcharge has arrangements with taxi companies in the United Kingdom, Europe and North America.
The Cabcharge Asia joint venture is owned 85 percent by CityCab and 15 percent by Cabcharge Australia Pty Ltd.
Cabcharge Asia plans to capture about 10 percent of the Asian taxi payments market within five years and is already investigating additional opportunities in China.
According to the executive director of Cabcharge (Investments) Pty Ltd, Richard Fleming, countries with less developed taxi industries, like China, would see the company investing in more than just a charge card system.
He said Cabcharge Asia had begun to invest in high quality taxi services with computer dispatch systems and charge card systems in some major mainland Chinese cities.